


Riding Out The Storm

by Cephy



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Saiyuki
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: no_true_pair, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-13
Updated: 2009-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:49:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephy/pseuds/Cephy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FF7 meets Burial-era Saiyuki, and a few character substitutions occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riding Out The Storm

_Zack caught himself humming as he turned up the path that led to the house. And he tried to stop himself, really he did, if for no other reason than the fact that a guy really wasn't supposed to be so happy to go home to his roommate. But then, a guy really wasn't supposed to know just how good said roommate was in bed, either, and if the villagers ever caught on that he did indeed know that fact, it could make their lives a whole hell of a lot harder, but--_

_Well. It was hard not to be happy knowing that Cloud was waiting for him just a few steps ahead._

_Only when he went to push open the door, he found it was open already-- and instead of a voice greeting him, there was nothing at all. One of their chairs was overturned on the floor, next to a dark splatter of something that looked an awful lot like--_

_Zack whirled at the sound of a footstep behind him, though not fast enough, and he had just enough time to flinch before it all went--_

"Wake up."

Zack's started awake, heart pounding. He hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep, hadn't _intended_ to fall asleep, not when--

He turned automatically to the side, searching. Through the barrier of thick metal bars, Cloud was watching him with too-wide blue eyes, and that was enough to let some of the chill fade from his gut. Still all right, then-- whatever they'd been taken for, it hadn't happened yet.

Though from the look of things-- the jab of a boot recalled him to his own cell. There were two youkai in there with him, and two more outside looking impatient and bored and like they were half-hoping he'd try something just so they could have the excuse. He'd seen the type enough to recognize it, and though he'd occasionally been known to give that sort their excuse just so someone else wouldn't have to, the odds weren't exactly with him this time around. Gritting his teeth, Zack got to his feet and let them fasten his arms behind him, let them push him out into the hallway.

He turned his head as much as he could as he was led out, and tried to smile for Cloud. Cloud watched him go with frantic worry written all over his face.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting-- boiling oil, manacles and whips, maybe a pit of snakes-- but being pushed into a massive room containing dozens of cowering youkai certainly wasn't it. They were huddled against the walls in clumps, dirty clothing blending together until it was hard to tell exactly how many there were. They all looked at him, though, as his guards fastened the door and left him there, all white-edged eyes and hollowed cheeks and peculiar blank intensity.

Someone cleared their throat, above, and his head turned automatically to follow the sound.

There was some kind of viewing gallery up near the ceiling, separated from the lower floor by about fourty feet and a rough metal railing or else he might have tried to jump it. Behind that barrier were a bunch of youkai in white coats-- and at the head of the pack, the slimy one with glasses that Zack vaguely remembered seeing when they'd been brought in. _Professor_, the rest had called him then, and _that cold bastard Hojo_, later, behind his back. The bland, impersonal stare the good Professor directed around the room made Zack shiver.

"Subject A," Hojo dictated, and the white-coat closest to him scrambled to take notes. "Physically stronger of the two subjects. If the process puts as much stress on a body as it is rumoured, best to start with superior materials." Hojo leaned forward ever so slightly, peering down over the railing. "You, human," he said, louder, looking straight down at Zack. "You will take this--" one of his assistants held up a long knife, "and you will kill all of these." He gestured around the room, while the huddled youkai cringed even further into the floor and Zack himself gaped in shock.

"Like hell I--"

"You will," Hojo cut in, wearing a thin smile, "or Subject B will not live to regret your stubbornness."

Zack went cold. There was only one person 'Subject B' could be, only one person that would make the threat worthwhile. He looked around, seeing the frightened faces, the dull eyes. Closed his own eyes and thought of Cloud sitting in his cell, relying on Zack to get them out. Zack's hands clenched helplessly at his sides.

Hojo must have taken the motion as a sign of agreement, because the assistant leaned over the railing and dropped the blade. It hit the stone of the floor with an echoing clatter that made all of those below, Zack included, flinch.

Other than that instinctive reaction, though, Zack didn't move-- couldn't move, really, too tied up by indecision. The idea of following the orders of someone like _that_ left a sour taste in his mouth, over and above the vague sick feeling that came from the idea of cold-bloodedly slaughtering the pathetic creatures gathered around him. He didn't know how he could do it. Didn't want to do it. But--

But it wasn't just his own life or morals at stake. If it meant that Cloud would suffer for it, could he really make that decision?

Even as he hesitated, the atmosphere in the room changed. All eyes were on the discarded weapon, and the shuffle of feet became the hiss of whispers became the ugly rumble of mutters. Finally, inevitably, the stillness broke as someone darted out from the wall, eyes wild.

Instinct took over. Zack bent and scooped up the knife, lifted it to defend himself as bared teeth and clawed hands came at him. The blade was dull enough to make things messy but it did the job, and when he wiped the splatter of blood from his cheek, he saw the rest of the mob shifting restlessly.

A horrible resignation came over him then, mixed with a shameful sense of relief. _At least I can tell myself it's self-defense,_ he thought, and then the growing tension boiled over and they were upon him.

In the corner of his mind that could still step back and observe, it occured to him that the white-coats had to be feeding more youkai into the room as he cut them down-- there couldn't have been so many at the start, they just kept _coming_, even when he thought he had to be nearing the end of them. Nearly sick with the scent of blood, blinking rapidly to keep his vision clear, Zack backed himself against a wall and grimly kept going, until eventually the pressing mass of bodies did thin, until the last few wild-eyed attackers fell and none came up behind to take their places. Zack's arm felt like stone when he finally let the knife drop.

He had a single moment to look up at Hojo's smugly smiling face before the pain started in his bones and burned out into his muscles, and he was screaming.

It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually it began to fade, leaving him lying in a shivering huddle on the floor. He curled into himself and gasped through the aftermath, feeling-- distinctly _not right_ in ways he couldn't properly define, drained but invigorated, weak and tired but with someting molten and wild in his blood, in his head, telling him _up, up, fight, free, kill--_

He found himself looking up again, and though the roaring in his ears made it impossible to hear what Hojo was saying to his assistants, he could still see the _pleased_ look on the man's face. Zack flexed his hands idly, looked at the wall again, at the railing--

He pushed himself up in one jerk of motion and _leaped_, caught the edge of metal and pulled it away to the sound of screams.

White-coats scattered, doors opened and slammed but he only had eyes for Hojo, who didn't look quite so smug anymore. Zack started forward, shoved one of Hojo's assistants out of the way and ended up tearing through flesh with his claws-- _claws_, on his fingers, sweet merciful gods-- but still kept going. He only stopped when something hit the back of his head, when the guards that finally showed up swarmed him, pressed him down. Woozy, he could do nothing to stop them as they fastened his arms again, even going so far as to put a collar on him and attach it to a long pole-- _like an animal,_ the thought came to him, and he remembered the claws and felt something a little hysterical welling up in his throat.

From some distance, he heard Hojo talking again-- things like _unquestionable success_ and _perhaps replicate the process artificially_ and _useful to have a second subject, really_. It took Zack a moment to piece it all together, but eventually it clicked. And then Zack struggled again, was hit down again, and when he woke he was chained to the wall in his cell with something pinching cold and painful on his ear. He pulled at his arms, but that strange new strength seemed to have abandoned him.

When he looked over, Cloud was gone.

He wasn't sure how much time passed before anyone came for him-- a group of slouch-shouldered youkai with the same look of waiting violence that he'd seen before, only this time with less to hold it back. They came right into the cell to stare at him, close enough that he could smell their breath. And the most frustrating thing was that it wasn't much of a risk on their part, because no matter how Zack tried he couldn't get loose. A fact which only seemed to incite them further.

Just when he was sure things were about to get really ugly, though, there came a shout from above, behind-- echoing down the stairs with the tinny overtones of panic. The gathered youkai exhanging uneasy glances, distracted, before they turned as a group and bolted away, chasing down the source of the commotion.

Zack all but held his breath as the last one left, swinging the cell door closed behind himself as he ran-- and not looking back to see the inch of space left where it didn't quite close properly. Zack nearly laughed out loud, feeling something like hope for the first time in too long.

It didn't get him off the wall. But it was a start.

_Hang on, Cloud, I'm coming._

He thoughtfully rubbed his stinging ear to his shoulder, feeling something there scrape and shift. Small, whatever it was. Metal, from the feel of it. He somehow didn't think they'd be giving him jewellry for the hell of it, so it had to serve a purpose, and considering everything that had happened--

He rubbed his ear again, harder, and then again-- and something tore free, taking skin with it as it fell with a little _ping_ to the floor. His vision swam for a moment when the last one came loose, but the vertigo passed quickly and left him once again with that odd sense of power, of instincts sitting strangely in the back of his head.

_Perfect._

Clenching a fist, he threw every ounce of that new strength into _pulling_, straining at one of the manacles holding him in until he was sure he heard something crack in his wrist. But something seemed to give in the wall, as well, so he gritted his teeth and kept going. And when metal shrieked and broke on that side, he gripped the opposite arm and went to work on that one.

His hearing was sharper, too-- one tentative touch to the side of his head and the long, pointed ears there told him all he needed to know about why-- and though he didn't really want to think about that, for the moment he wouldn't question it. The guards didn't seem to be making much of an effort to stay quiet, after all.

Later-- later, once he'd got them free, _then_ he'd freak out.

The youkai he saw on his way up from the cells were largely confused, disorganized, panicked-- he didn't stop long enough to question his luck, just avoided them where possible and used his new claws where it wasn't, moving on, looking for Cloud. He was pretty sure it was just his imagination that made him think he could _hear_ Cloud calling to him, calling for help, because even with his new hearing that was a bit unrealistic. But he followed the vague twinges of instinct and almost-heard whispers, and eventually broke down a door to find Cloud sealed inside some kind of glass tube, slumped against the wall, eyes wide but staring at nothing, with three little silver clips on his ear.

Something in Zack tried to rebel at the sight, something tightened his throat until he couldn't _breathe_ and drove him forward until the shattering crash of glass brought him back to sense. "Cloud," he whispered, reaching down to cup Cloud's cheek, tilt his chin up. "Cloud-- come on, wake up--" He shook one shoulder gently, rubbed at Cloud's wrists and even dared tap a palm to his face in something not quite a slap, but got no response. And then he looked at Cloud's blank eyes, drew a shaky breath, held it, tried another, and _another_ until the stone lodged under his heart receded enough to let him move. Because it _still_ wasn't the time for that, yet.

With Cloud draped over his shoulder, he went back out to the hallway-- and stopped, realizing that he had no idea where to go next. In the end, he followed his nose towards fresh air, and it at least worked to get them to a door, though there were a lot of guards between it and them and these ones seemed a little more organized than the rest.

And he must have overestimated their love of their own claws because at least one of them had a gun, and used it with sharp little _cracks_ that echoed off the stone. He did his best to shield Cloud, but didn't dare stop and check that it had worked. The night swallowed the castle behind them as he dragged them onward.

It was only when he started to see the lights of settlement in the distance that he hesitated, considering. He'd picked up the little clips from the floor of his cell, digging them out of cracks in the stone with long nails. And while the extra strength was useful for carrying Cloud-- and himself-- if they ran into anyone, they were more likely to get the help they needed if he looked a little more helpless. So he balanced Cloud against his shoulder, fished in his pocket and eventually fumbled the things back on his ear. The resulting wash of weakness nearly made him fall, but he managed to stagger onwards.

Eventually, he couldn't walk any more.

***

He found the guy in the middle of the road-- just lying there, looking like a corpse, though from the trail behind him he'd obviously been alive enough to crawl not too long before. Gojyo tried to stop and think about it, he really did, but hell-- he must have had some sort of honour in him after all, because the idea of leaving someone to bleed out in the rain just felt kinda wrong. It really was a damned pathetic way to go.

Besides. Maybe he was a bit curious. Or bored. Or both.

The guy didn't twitch the entire time Gojyo was cleaning him up-- swabbing off the mud, then mopping up the blood that came out from under it, then wrapping bandages around the whole mess before going outside for a smoke. There was a corner of the porch where one could sit on the railing and lean back against the door, and still be sheltered just enough by the roof to not get dripped on. Gojyo settled there, fingers automatically flicking the lighter while his thoughts wandered back inside.

It was bad, no mistaking that. The guy'd been shot, and more than once-- hell, more than a few times-- and though he looked like he was pretty strong it wouldn't be an easy thing to heal from. If he even woke up. And that was a pretty gruesome thought, all of a sudden, because what the hell was Gojyo doing to do with a corpse in his bed?

He ended up drifting there on the front step, not quite asleep, breathing the scent of rain as it mingled with the tang of smoke.

He woke again, some time later, at the sound of a shout.

The man was curled in on himself on the bed, blanket skewed as if he'd tried to flail and only ended up hurting-- the sound of laboured breathing was loud in the room. When Gojyo stepped closer, though, the man's head snapped up, eyes hard and narrow and-- well, he was only _imagining_ that they glowed, surely, but it was a damned neat trick nonetheless.

"Take it easy," he tried, not moving any closer. "You want any of those holes to heal, you might not want to move around so much."

"Where's Cloud?" the man rasped.

Gojyo blinked. "Nobody out there but you, man."

For a moment, the guy didn't move, glaring like he thought Gojyo was lying-- then his eyes blinked shut and the moment was gone. Something flashed across the stranger's face-- pain, of course, and something uncomfortably like _guilt_ mixed in with a healthy dose of teeth-gritting bull-stubborn determination. Moving slowly, the guy shoved the blanket the rest of the way down and made as if to put his feet to the floor-- turned white as a priest's undershorts when he started sitting up, but he kept going anyway until Gojyo took a few quick steps forward to push him back down.

"Stop it, fuck-- I spent too long cleaning you up to have you go and bleed on everything again. Look--" He freed one hand, pointed to the window where the sheeting rain was still visible. "You're not going to be able to go anywhere in _that_ anyway, even if you were in one piece. So just-- wait, all right?"

He really thought the guy was going to just ignore him-- stubborn types, you could always tell the ones that had too much responsibility for their own good. So he pressed down a bit on one shoulder, and only felt a little guilty when the guy's arms buckled out from under him.

The guy actually looked surprised, which was more than a little funny-- did he really expect anything different? He did look like he was maybe convinced to stay still, though, at least for the moment, so Gojyo eased back to standing as he gave in to his curiousity. "How'd you get full of holes, anyway? You remember?"

"I was-- a friend of mine. We were both being held captive, I tried to--" Paused, winced a different kind of wince, lifted a hand to his ear where Gojyo noticed for the first time the three little silver clips hidden amidst his hair. _Ah._ He'd wondered where the demon stink was coming from, since he'd already tossed the guy's clothes out to be burned. "I have to go back," the guy went on, sounding a little stronger, or maybe just more desperate. "I don't know where-- he might still be out there, and I promised--" He looked towards the door again, though it was obvious that whatever strength he had left was fading fast, and his eyes were drooping shut even as he spoke.

"Take it easy," Gojyo said again, tugging the blanket up off the floor and draping it haphazardly over the bed again. "Wait 'til morning, anyway. Maybe the storm'll be over by then."

He glanced up and saw a slack face and closed eyes, and he snorted and he straightened up. Chewed his lip for a second as he looked down and wondered what the hell he was doing, just a little.

The door's hinges creaked in the damp as he opened them again, fingers moving from pocket to lips to lighter with no thought required. Sparks flared as he lit up, and faded as he stared out into the rain.

***

The guy healed faster than Gojyo thought he would, if obviously not as fast as he himself wanted. He started moving around the house before anyone sane would have, looking pale and pained and generally like hell, but he kept doing it anyway. Gojyo just rolled his eyes and picked him up when he pushed it a little too far.

Whoever this "Cloud" was, he had to be pretty damned hot to drive a man so crazy. Gojyo admitted to maybe being a little bit curious.

When the guy wouldn't be put off any more, Gojyo went with him as he retraced his steps. It became pretty obvious where they were going, after a while-- not much _in_ that part of the country but the castle, probably for good reason. And though Gojyo had half expected they'd have to quit halfway, since the guy'd looked like he was ready to keel over before they'd gone ten miles, they made it there in the end.

Fat lot of good it did them.

Gojyo made sure they stayed at a safe distance-- the fires were out, long since, but some of the stonework still looked like it might fall at any minute. It was impressive, really, the extent of the damage-- hand of god or some shit, because the entire thing was pretty much just _gone_.

The guy just stood there for a minute and looked at it all with that sick, guilty look in his eyes. And then he did a better sway than most drunks of Goyjo's acquaintance, and finally did what he _should_ have done hours before: collapse to his knees like his strings had been cut. Or maybe like the hope of finding his friend had been the only thing keeping him up.

A branch snapped behind them; Gojyo's head whipped around, trying _not_ to imagine the sort of being that might destroy a castle and then come back to haunt the ruins. He was not-imagining it so well that when a monk and a kid stepped out of the undergrowth a short distance away, for a moment all he could do was blink.

The monk eyed them narrowly-- Gojyo eyed right back, of course, looping fingers in his belt and settling back on his heels. Eventually the monk stepped up, and that was when Gojyo noticed the gun in his hand. "I'm looking for Cho Gonou."

"Good for you," Gojyo replied warily.

The monk's scowl deepened, making him look alarmingly _angry_ considering he was a monk. "Have you seen him?" he asked through gritted teeth.

Gojyo thought about his nameless guest, only briefly. "I can honestly say I have not."

The monk somehow managed to look even more pissed, something that Gojyo hadn't thought possible. "Too many people we don't fucking need and not the one we do," he muttered-- which struck Gojyo as a bit odd, but given the look on the monk's face, he wasn't about to ask. He'd put away the gun, after all, and Gojyo wasn't about to give him an excuse to get it back out again. Instead, he waited until the monk fished out a smoke and had it safely lit before he asked what seemed like a safer question. "So, what did this Cho guy do?"

"He's a wanted murderer," the monk elaborated. "He's responsible for this." A cigarette-bearing hand gestured to the castle's ruins.

Despite himself, Goyjo glanced over at his nameless friend, and of course the movement didn't go unnoticed. "Who is he?" the monk asked sharply.

"Second cousin," Goyjo said blandly. "On my mother's side. Name's--"

"Zack."

They all turned. His charity case-- Zack, apparently-- was still looking into the distance, but he kept speaking. "My name's Zack."

The monk scowled hard, followed Zack's fixed stare, sucked deep on his cigarette-- Gojyo's fingers twitched as he licked his lips, because he stupidly hadn't grabbed a full pack when they left that morning-- and looked very clearly like he was putting two and two together. His eyes lingered on Zack's ear for a little too long to be a coincidence. "Did you have anything to do with that?" he asked bluntly, and he didn't have to gesture much to make it known what he was asking about.

"No," Zack answered, shaking his head slowly and sounding far away. "We were in there, Cloud and I. I think-- there was something going on, something that distracted them and let us escape, but I didn't--"

The monk looked at him like he was deciding whether Zack was telling the truth, and also kind of like he wanted to make sure of that through judicious use of violence. After a few moments of frowning, though, he huffed a sigh and went to nudge Zack with his toe.

"Congratulations, you're now a witness. You're coming with me."

Zack blinked up at the monk, looking confused. "I didn't really--"

"You're either a witness or a suspect, take your pick."

Zack blinked again, then gave a weary laugh. "Witness it is, then."

The monk paused, then turned to Gojyo. "You. You're coming too."

"Me?" Gojyo protested. "What'd I do?"

"Aiding and abetting."

"You just said he wasn't a suspect!"

The monk's eye twitched, and he reached towards his sleeve-- which, Goyjo was suddenly sure, was where he'd stashed the gun. Gojyo threw up both hands and backed a step away.

"Okay, okay, fuck. I'm going. Far be it for me to argue with Your Holiness." Gojyo made sure the kid was looking the other way before he flipped up the finger to the monk's back, and then he sighed. A _temple_. His reputation would be ruined.

But, really, it wasn't like like his erstwhile houseguest could walk all the way to Chang-an on his own yet. And he'd already helped the guy once, so what was a little further? Gods knew he could certainly stand to work up a little good karma.

"Sanzo," the kid shouted, prompting a twitch out of the monk. "You want me to stick around here, keep looking?"

"_No,_," the monk yelled back immediately. "Fuck, the last thing I need is you running around the countryside, eating everything in sight. Get over here."

"But _Sanzo_\--"

Then again, Gojyo thought, he had always suspected there were worse fates than death.

***

Chang-an was-- not what he expected. Actually, he hadn't known what to expect, from Sanzo's behaviour-- one one hand, he was a _monk_, so the immediate expectation was something along the lines of chanting and incense and white marble pillars. On the other hand, there was the cursing and the smoking and the _gun_, so it could have been anything from a gambling house to a brothel to an arena full of robed men battling for supremacy.

And that was the point in his rambling where Cloud usually rolled his eyes and smacked Zack's shoulder and said to stop being ridiculous, and it hurt all over again when Zack realized that was never going to happen.

The city was, thankfully, somewhere in between the extremes. It was a normal collection of streets and shops and merchant's stalls, full of normal-seeming people walking through it all. The temple was a point of near-stillness alongside it, not quite a separate entity but still seeming to preside over all the rest.

Cloud, he couldn't help but think, would have loved it.

They were inside the gates and heading towards the most impressive of the buildings when something caught his eye and pulled him to a halt just as surely as the shackles he could still almost feel around his wrists. He couldn't even say _what_ it was, had to resort to backtracking a few steps and looking around wildly, trying to spot it again--

_There_. A flash of a very particular yellow, and something in his chest seized. He was running without any conscious decision to do so, pushing people out of the way and not entirely caring that he might have a bullet in the back of his head at any moment. Through an arch and over a low row of plants, and--

Cloud. Cloud, breathing and living and sitting in a garden, dressed for some reason in an acolyte's robe, and-- Zack couldn't completely stop the broken little sound that escaped him when he saw those three little clips on Cloud's ear, just like he hadn't wanted to remember, and gods but it _hurt_ to know he hadn't been able to protect him from that.

But he was there. Alive. Breathing. And that was more than enough of a wonder, more miracle than he probably deserved. He whirled around on Sanzo, who had followed with Goku and Gojyo in tow. "How-- where did--"

"He showed up on the temple steps about a week ago," Sanzo reluctantly explained when no one else spoke up, "looking like he'd been chewed on by half the wildlife in the country."

That was enough to make Zack turn back to Cloud, push up his sleeves to examine the bandages underneath, and eventually heave a sigh of relief when he didn't discover anything truly serious. Except that through it all, Cloud just sat there, staring blankly and occasionally mumbling under his breath. "What's wrong with him?" Zack asked tightly, after a few vain attempts at gaining Cloud's attention.

Sanzo's eyes were still hard, but his voice was quiet when he answered. "We don't know."

Zack let out the breath he had almost been holding and nodded reflexively, though in a way it was almost worse to hear the answer. Because Cloud was alive, yes, but if even the learned priests of Chang-an didn't know how to make him better--

Someone gave a polite cough at his back, amidst the sudden ripple of shock that passed through the gathered ranks. Zack turned and found a woman beaming down at him, one in a pink dress and with a bow in her hair that should have been impossible, carrying a basket of flowers. She looked tiny, harmless, and yet there was something about her, something in the too-bright green of her eyes--

"'Scuze me," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She leaned down, using Zack as a prop, and kissed Cloud on both cheeks, then pulled back just far enough to tuck a flower behind his ear. She looked over for a moment, considering, and then leaned to kiss Zack's cheek as well. "Just for good measure," she said.

Zack blinked, and lifted a startled hand to touch his face. It kind of-- tingled.

The woman smiled impishly, and winked before vanishing into thin air.

He heard the astonished mutters of the monks but didn't really care, because just at that moment the arm under his hand shifted. Zack _did_ hold his breath as blue eyes moved slowly, focused, tracked up Zack's chest to his face--

Cloud blinked up at Zack and whispered his name.


End file.
